EBRPD Hall of Shame, Ohlone "Wilderness Trail" Edition

09/18/2008 22:55

If you decide to hike the part of the Ohlone "Wilderness Trail" in and near Mission Peak, you're in for a dispiriting surprise.

Let's say you get someone to drop you off on Mill Creek Road, because it's the closest paved access to this end of the trail. You'll find yourself on this dirt road through cattle pasture, between barbed wire fences:

You'll have to deal with several locked gates along the way, some of which you have to climb over (look in the distance):

Finally you've made it to the trailhead! See that lockbox? Ranch and EBRPD trucks can drive right on through...

But you'll need to have a permit to enter this pristine wilderness! Also you can't ride your bicycle here...

...because hiking without a permit, or riding a bicycle, would destroy the wilderness character of these overgrazed cattle pastures, dirt roads, and...huge rusty iron pipes.

EBRPD projects sound good on paper: who could possibly oppose a "Wilderness Trail"? Unfortunately, the ugly reality is that we are paying them hundreds of millions of dollars for dirt roads through cattle pasture.

This is why we oppose the $500 million Measure WW tax. We should be giving our money to our chronically underfunded city and local parks programs, or even California State Parks -- which know how to run and maintain parklands for people, not trucks and cows.